The Last of Kin
by BenignViewer
Summary: The doctor always evaded talk about his family, now they new why... This will be very AU as of the 8th/9th Doctor, filling in some gaps in the early years and moving on from there (note: I'm still pretending the Rose and Riversong ships never happened).
1. Gallifrey

_Foreword: This is an idea that has been bugging me since I watched the repeat of "The End of Time" on TV tonight. I haven't the foggiest as to where this will take me, if it goes anywhere at all. I'm writing entirely in the spur of the moment._  
><em>I own nothing of Doctor Who, and reject everything to do with Rose Tyler and Doctorhuman romantic relationships. In my ideal world the doctor died before becoming anything resembling his currently televised regenerations._  
><em>Sorry if I offend anyone, but I refuse to write, read, or accept as canon, anything to do with the afore mentioned 'shipping'. Now without further ado, I give you:<em>

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><p><strong>The Last of Kin<strong>

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><p><strong>Gallifrey<strong>

Gallifrey was a truly magnificent world. The tall, silver-leaved trees reflected the burnt orange sky. The twin suns, known in Time Lord legend as Mina and Loren, the red daughters of time and the mothers of their race, were slowly disappearing below the horizon, the low light setting a fire of colour to the pristine Arkytior flowers she was named for.

She savoured her last look of the planet in the glowing orange light, knowing instinctively that it would be her last. Her parents stood not far from her, talking quietly to her grandfather. Her grandmother's death was still recent in the terms of Time Lords, but the decades it would be in Earth time would make her Grandfather appear unstable to the planet's native residents.

That was the reason why she was out here now, taking this last chance to run her bare feet through the silken red grass. She was going to miss home so much, but she was now past the age where attending the academy was mandatory, at least by the rules the Prydonian Chapter. Her parents had tried to keep her out of it as long as they could, in contrast to her grandfather's parents who had enrolled him when he was eight, or so went the stories she'd been told.

He himself had told her about the awe-inspiring terror that was the time vortex. She hadn't believed him when he'd described the fear and power that had rooted him to the very precipice of it. Of the whispers he'd heard and felt, the tendrils of unfathomable knowledge that reached out into his mind. That was the comfort of insanity which the fabric of reality offered, he'd told her. Her parents refused to speak of it.

Now she knew for herself, and it was everything her grandfather had told her and more. She had run before setting even a foot in front of it. She'd turned her back on her class and instructor, heading straight for the nearest transport out of the capitol and to the fields where her parents lived and dreamt of the happenings of the universe.

She knew upon her arrival, as did they, that she would have to go back to the capitol and the academy, but none of them said a thing. Instead she spent the evening revelling in the warmth and comfort of her renewed connection telepathic to her parents and home.

And so it was that when her grandfather came storming in, angrily throwing aside his formal Prydonian robes, she was there to hear of his looming exile. And this gave her the seeds of a plan. She didn't know exactly what he'd done, no doubt some latest form of disrespect to the High Council over the 'involvement' debate they'd been having ever since her grandmother's death.

It was considered a great tragedy, amongst Time Lord society, that one of their own had been killed so young, just barely three hundred years old, and before even her first regeneration. She didn't know the details of how – few did, and none of those few would tell her – but she did know that her mother had been grieving for most of her life, and her grandfather… well, his madness in the aftermath was well known. He demanded to be called 'the Doctor' and all manner of things, none more so than the demands he levelled at the high council, the latest consequence of which being his exile from Gallifrey.

At sixteen years of age she had only brief memories of her grandmother, but she remembered enough to know that she was exceedingly beautiful and generous, and her grandfather was once a witty and gentle man, but for the most part these vague impressions were hard to reconcile with the lonely, moody and cantankerous grandfather she'd known most of her life. But now she was determined to run away with him, sure he had some plan to escape the planet without being escorted off it.

Arkytior was sure that by now her parents, and probably her grandfather too, were aware of her intentions, but no one made any move to confront. She could feel her mother's concern and worry as Arkytior made her way leisurely through the country Gallifrean gardens surrounding her home of sixteen years. Her father suddenly reached out to her, pulling Arkytior in towards himself and her mother. Together they three shared a silent embrace, before they broke apart.

She and her mother now looked to her grandfather, daughter and granddaughter meeting his eyes squarely, but no less worriedly, before he sighed.

Addressing Arkytior, he spoke the first and last words of the evening. "Well, come now, child. If you are so determined to get away, then at least you can help me get everything prepared." And with that he stomped back towards the sprawling and expansive homestead, the metallic structure gleaming bronze in the last of the suns' light.

With one last embrace, and silent promises made between them, she and her parents parted, her mother with tears in her eyes to match Susan's own. Only her father's reassuring smile kept her from turning back as she ran after her grandfather.

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><p>AN: Arkytior is Susan Foreman/English/Campbell's Gallifreyan name in the extended canon. It his High Gallifreyan for a Gallifrey-native flower. If anyone is interested, they can look up the etymology of 'Susan' to understand the rough translation.


	2. Earth (I)

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><p><strong>The Last of Kin<strong>

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><p><strong>Earth (I)<strong>

Earth is almost impossibly strange. Here the grass is green, the sky an insipid blue, and there is so much water. The great golden sea of Nrion back home pales in comparison to the water that covers this planet, despite Gallifrey being almost twice Earth's size.

It amazed her that the water itself was so light, free of all the heavy ions which characterized Gallifrey's ocean. Whereas Gallifrey's sea divided her world into but two continents, one twice as large as the other, here on Earth the myriad of continents and islands were confusing.  
>As Susan understood it, she and her grandfather had landed their stolen TARDIS in a place called Great Britain, which was a small Island, and yet the head of a mighty empire. While her grandfather had set up a small dwelling in an old junkyard, he delighted in taking her on short trips back along Earth's timeline, and perhaps even more delighted in lecturing her in the history and events they saw.<p>

In truth, despite her grandfather's best efforts, she missed home and she was sure that he did too. Although their family was small, and often considered eccentric for choosing to live as outsiders away from the Citadel, nevertheless her parents, her father's parents, and her grandmother had lived in close proximity, among the mountains of Serenity. The estates at Mount Perdition, the foremost peak of the mountain range, were considered the closest thing to true civilization near her home, but all her memories of it consisted of running wild through the Council Lord's fields, chasing the Tafelshrews, and eating the Nisha fruit - picked straight from the orchard.

Had that all really been so recent, when it felt so long ago, like it was yet to come?

Stretching her consciousness out to touch the ocean of time, she was reassured by the impermeable fixed moments in time of her memories, of her home.  
>Her heart panged for it, yet her other thumped uncontrollably when she thought of going back, an image of the schism filled her mind, and rendered her paralyzed. Her conscious mind could not understand it, but when she had seen the schism and seen the past, the present and the future converge, her instincts had screamed at her to get away from Gallifrey.<br>She couldn't _not_ look back, but now, just as much, she had to move forward. Strangely though, it felt very much like moving backwards, being on this planet as yet unencountered by the wider universe.

Guess that's why grandfather likes it so much.

When her grandfather had half-asked for, half-demanded her help she hadn't expected to find her knowledge of Earth history and customs being quizzed. She tried to dismiss the memories and get back to reading the assigned English history. The language itself was a curious oddity, full of strange rules and contradictions, the history not much better. Giving up on that she reached out with her thoughts again, this time to the telepathic circuits of the old Type 40, added to by her grandfather and her thoughts both. She was looking for an Earth name, a translation for her Gallifreyan one; Shoshana, Susanna, Susan, her mind was directed to.

_Susan_ knew that her family would like it.

She smiled.

.oOo.

"I know you know where I'm being sent child, if not why. So if you're so determined to come with me, then at least show me that you have the proper knowledge to fit in." He had been more amused, than anything else by her answers. "You are still too linear in your thinking; we are not traveling to Earth in our time, but to their time of 1963. Now let's see if we can find something to make you look the part."

She had tried to interject, tried to tell him that there was no way the Council, or indeed any of the Time Lords would let him be exiled with a dimensional time shift device. He had merely grinned and taken her back to the Capitol on a transport. She'd felt a momentary thrill of fear, a lapse of reason, as they passed the Academy, reminding her of why she was leaving. However, her grandfather didn't even hesitate and strode on into the Panopticon, and once there into the Museum of Time.

It was here that he displayed a small sonic device – a screwdriver, he claimed – to her for the first time, getting access to the security console for an old TT Type 40, Mark 3 device. He'd quickly broken the code and disabled the security barriers. No matter what else was said about her grandfather, there was no denying the man was a genius.

Holding his sonic screwdriver against the device's lock, the doors sprang open, and he looked at them with something between a grimace and a grin. "Going to have to change that. People always underestimate sonic devices… it just won't do." He muttered. With that, he'd stepped inside.

She took a moment to take in the old relic of pioneering Time-Dimensional travel. It was mostly spherical in shape, with a flat bottom. Circular depressions were laid into its surface, not dissimilar to an Earth golf ball, and they shone with a warm gold light against the darkness of the closed museum.  
>The rest of the shell was made of a cool grey metal, with intricate circular carvings in Gallifreyan long-hand repeating the words 'time' and 'dimensions' in beautiful detail. Old High Gallifreyan symbols accompanied the circular designs, but she couldn't read them.<p>

"Hurry along, child, we can't wait around for the Panopticon Guard to catch us, then we'll be in real trouble."

She'd sighed and turned away from the Type 40's natural appearance, afraid it was the last time she would see it like this, that the chameleon circuit would soon erase the last outward image of her home world. She stepped inside, not turning to look as the doors thudded shut behind her. Then she'd heard the noise which was like a song from her hearts, mournful and freeing all at once, as it heralded her farewell to the only world and life she'd known.

.oOo.

Susan had since coined the term TARDIS – Time And Relative Dimensions In Space – for their Type 40, and in the months they'd been together she'd worn her grandfather down to using the name as well. Of course, every time she'd tried to rub it in since he capitulated, he refused to acknowledge the name as anything other than his idea. The banter was light-hearted, she knew, but her growing companionship with her grandfather wasn't enough to stave off her longing for friends her own age. She was surprised to find the human youth very similar to those of her own race, maturing more or less at the same rate Gallifreyan's did in their adolescence.

It was for these reasons that she'd started pressuring her grandfather to let her go to school. Of course, she couldn't justify it to him like that, but she knew he'd seen right through her. Nevertheless he had agreed, warning her to not draw attention to them. "We aren't like them, Susan. We can't afford to be seen as different." For once not calling her child.

"But we look just like them" She insisted.

"No, our race stretches across a billion years of history, and has traced every edge of the universe… they look like us. But be wary, they are not us." He said gruffly.

"But why must we hide so?"

"It is not them we are hiding from child, but those of our own people who would see us dragged back to Gallifrey and tried. However do not doubt that if these humans discover us, so will our own people." That was the end of the matter, and even though she'd gotten her way and hence enrolled in school, she still felt like she'd been scolded. She smiled wistfully, that was her grandfather.

.oOo.

Today she was afraid that what her grandfather had cautioned her against was coming to pass. Two humans and teachers of hers, Barbara and Ian, had followed her to where she and her grandfather lived in the junkyard.

She hung her head in resignation for the scolding of a lifetime – perhaps two, even – but her grandfather had just spoken with the two of them, then, grinning madly in a way that told her he was having fun – but trying to hide it – he got all four of them inside the TARDIS, disguised as a police box, and then they were gone, fleeing Earth, like Gallifrey before.

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><p><em>AN: I don't have the TARDIS key, so I probably don't own it... But then why is it parked outside?_


End file.
